The Chronotope and Other Speculative Fictions Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  DEDICATION

  CONSEQUENCES OF STEAM

  BROTHERS

  MORE ALLISONS THAN I KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH

  SIX DAYS APART

  TRAILER PARK TRASH

  OF PROMS, TIME, AND ALIENS

  SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED ON THE WAY BACK FROM BORREGO SPRINGS

  HARDBOILED ZOMBIE DETECTIVE

  THE ARRANGEMENT WITH MR. GREEN

  THE LAST BUSHEL OF GRAPES

  TROUT FISHING ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF OBLIVION

  THE SMALL BRIGHT WHITE LIGHT AT THE CENTER OF THE EYE

  TRANQUILITY

  WELCOME TO THE MEMOIRS

  THE DREAMER

  THE CHRONOTOPE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1999, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013 by Michael Hemmingson

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  DEDICATION

  To

  Robert Silverberg

  and Barry Malzberg,

  influences;

  And for

  Rominna Michelle Hemmingson,

  daughter

  CONSEQUENCES OF STEAM

  I.

  Ellis Chamberlain is a stocky and powerful man who, when walking into a room, draws all attention to him—perhaps because of his flamboyant clothing, a nineteenth-century tuxedo with a top hat and white cane and a cape, giving him the appearance of a dapper gent from antiquity or a ostentatious stage magician; or perhaps it’s the fact that he is one of the richest men in Nevada, holder of proprietary time manipulation technology, and owner of the state’s four ChronoBrothels that renders an air of awe around him.

  “All men are whores, and so are all women,” is one of his favorite mottoes, “and whoredom being the oldest profession in human history, why deny this truth—why not embrace and become one with your inner whore? Defy conventions, I say! Sabers, gentlemen, sabers! To arms, and let us fornicate through time!”

  No one knows more about history and prostitution than Ellis Chamberlain, sometimes referred to in the media as The Pimp of Time, “the man who will sell your great-great-great-grandmother’s virtue for the right price,” an accusation he does not deny.

  “I have had clients wanting to sleep with ancient ancestors,” he says, “and I’ve provided them with that particular kink. They used to say, ‘Whatever floats your anti-grav’—and who am I to judge another person’s passion?”

  * * * *

  “If I had never met Wilson Wilcox, my current timeline would be completely different,” Chamberlain says, sitting at the bar in the Reno ChronoBrothel, or Time Lust #2. “I’d be still selling real estate on the moon, or I’d be a politician—what’s the difference when both hock moldy green cheese?”

  He met Wilson Wilcox when they were both freshman sharing a dorm room at MIT. This was no chance encounter, according to Chamberlain. “Before then, when we were just tots, on the same street. But we weren’t playmates then, we didn’t even know about each other. At the sweet sixteen birthday party of this lovely creature I wanted to—get to know better (and I did, too)—I happened to cross paths with young Wilson and someone said, ‘Hey, you two come from the same pod,’ and we talked about the pod and sex and science. Next came college, and we went to the same institution. I was majoring in international finance and he was a nose beak in quantum physics, and it was all Russian gibberish to me until he said, one day, he says, ‘I believe I can open a portal between temporal dimensions.’ That is, time travel, but only going backwards, never into the future, because the future doesn’t exist.”

  * * * *

  Chamberlain reminisces: “I’m a history buff, focused on the economic changes of decades, examining the patterns of commerce, so the theme of a different era per each floor was my initial idea. With Wilson’s time technology, we came up with magic, something the sex industry has never seen before—and you know they say that the sex industry is always the first to adopt any new technology. Think about it: it’s the oldest profession of all, going back to the cavemen times, so who could resist sampling prostitutes throughout history? You want a whore from Biblical times, we can do that; from the time of Marie-Antoinette, no problem; or ancient Greece to pre-colonial Mexico to Victorian England. Try a harlot from the Wild West or a beer frau from nineteenth-century Germany!

  “The question now is: which would you like to experience for yourself? All in the name of research, of course. Which you must do, sir. You can’t write an article about the ChronoBrothels without hopping down the line and having some fun. Sabers!”

  II.

  May 16, 1806

  London, England

  My Dear Rosemary,

  I am writing to you to narrate a most strange occurrence that happened last night while I engaged in my weekly group dining, in the company of friends and colleagues whose names I will only attribute initials to: K., V., A., W., S., and Q. We were entertained with a wonderfully magnificent and flabbergasting story by a man who called himself The Time Traveler.

  The Time Traveler was a handsome gent who wore the clothing of our era, yet he did not seem comfortable in the attire, as if he were wearing alien skin. He told us to call him ‘The Time Traveler,’ stating that his actual name would mean nothing to us.

  There were seven of us at the table. We had just finished dinner in the back room of the inn, and were enjoying brandy and cigars and telling ribald jokes when this fellow approached us. He said not a word, and sat down at our table without an invitation. He looked around at each one of us with his pale blue eyes, and we glanced at him with the same curiosity. He produced a cigar, a brand that I had never seen or smelled before. He struck a match. ‘I would like to tell you a story,’ said he.

  ‘We love stories,’ said S., ‘but we do not know you. Rather bold to place yourself to our company without telling us, at least, your name.’

  ‘I am truly sorry,’ said he, ‘but I do not have the time for pleasantries.’ He laughed. ‘How ironic. Here I am, a time traveler, and I have no time to spare.’

  ‘Did you say “time traveler”?’ inquired K.

  ‘Indeed: it is who I am and the name I will go by.’

  ‘And where, or whence, do you hail from, sir?’

  “The United States. What you know as the colonies. I come from the future, the year 2106. Exactly three hundred years from now.’

  That was worthy of a laugh from all of us. ‘Preposterous!’ ‘Impossible!’ ‘Insane!’

  The Time Traveler puffed his cigar. ‘Please, gentlemen, hear my story before passing judgment.’

  We agreed to listen to him. I asked if he would care for some brandy and he replied, ‘Yes, most kind of you. Thank you.’ I poured him a glass of the fine brown liquid and he told us the following:

  ‘As I stated, I am from 2106. I am what you call a Hunter. I hunt those who break the laws of time travel, who go back and change the course of history, thus altering the timeline and the lives of our ancestors, with dire impact on the future. The individual I seek—we shall call him The Journalist, for that was his occupation. He was on assignment to write a feature article on the ChronoBrothels in Nevada. I will try to explain this in a way you can understand. I trust you gentlemen know what a brothel is, correct?’

  ‘An outlandish question!’ said W.

  ‘Of course we do!’ said S.

  ‘I meant no offense,’ said The Time Traveler. ‘There are ten ChronoBrothels from my era; six are in Nevada, the others are in France, Florida, New Zealand, and Japan.
Yes, these places still exist hundreds of years from now. The ChronoBrothels are enormous structures, one hundred stories tall, one hundred floors of different eras for sexual gratification.’

  ‘You are making no sense, sir,’ I piped in.

  ‘Each floor is a portal into a different century, millennium, decade…you go to one floor, you will enter a corresponding brothel in, say, feudal China, or Denmark in the early twentieth century, or a harem in the Ottoman Empire. There had never been a breach before, a breach that would drastically alter the shape of history. It was, no pun intended, only a matter of time before it happened. And The Journalist was the man who committed this act. The first, I should note, as there have been others since, creating my occupation.

  ‘The Journalist told the proprietor of the establishment—Mr. Chamberlain, my boss—that he wished to visit a brothel in London in the year 1769. The Journalist went to that floor in the ChronoB and he never came back. At first no one knew what he had done, because the entire history of earth had changed. It so happened that a customer who was in ancient Sumeria returned with his memories intact of a history no one else recalled. That person was—is—me. I know this may not make sense to you gentlemen, so I will get right down to it: The Journalist introduced to the British Empire certain concepts of steam-based technology that powered airships, naval vessels, and weapons of mass destruction; a technology that aided England in defeating the American Revolution and maintaining control of the colonies—the result eradicating many major events that would follow, such as the American Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, World Wars One and Two, the Jihads Uprising.…’

  ‘Pardon me,’ said Q., ‘did you say steam-based technology?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We have that now.’

  ‘You should not. It was introduced into this timeline one hundred years before it was meant to.’

  ‘Thus creating an alternate timeline,’ said V.

  The Time Traveler stared at V. for a long moment, and the energy in the air was quite uncomfortable. The Time Traveler stated: ‘Exactly. A completely different future history.’

  ‘If all those wars were avoided,’ said V., ‘would not that be a good thing?’

  ‘Stopping any war is good for mankind,’ said A.

  ‘Not if the end result are wars more horrible,’ said the Time Traveler. ‘To stop the power-hungry monarchy of the England of the nineteenth century, France developed, or will, the atomic bomb in 1887, rushing forth a time of massive nuclear warfare, nearly destroying all of our race. By 1890, there was, or will be, a total of five thousand human beings left, living underground.’

  ‘All because of steam technology?’ asked K.

  ‘Yes. The consequences of innovation.’

  ‘This is completely insane and absurd!’ cried Q. ‘The Empire losing the colonies? That would have been impossible.’

  ‘I assure you,’ the Time Traveler replied, ‘it was once a true course.’

  ‘I refuse to accept that those uneducated, uncouth colonial barbarians could defeat Her Majesty’s armies,’ said A.

  We all agreed and toasted the Empire. The Time Traveler did not join us.

  ‘We must know, sir,’ said V. rather slowly, ‘why are you here narrating this tale of impossible wonder?’

  The Time Traveler glared at V. and stated: ‘Oh, you know why, Mr. Vance.’

  We all turned to V. in unison. Vance? That was not the name we knew him by.

  I hope, dear sister, you are still reading attentively and not laughing, deciding that your older brother has been composing a humorous false letter or has fallen ill to hallucination. I assure you: I am quite sincerely serious about what I heard this man declare, and what was about to transpire.

  V. and the Time Traveler continued to stare at one another.

  ‘Well, that certainly is quite the adventure story,’ said W., breaking the tension at the table.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said V., ‘I regret to inform you that everything you have heard from our visitor is true. To the best of my knowledge, that is. I am the Journalist our friend speaks of; and I come from the future just as he. However, I was not aware that my actions had such negative repercussions on history. My initial intention was merely to get away from the life I once had. I was not happy in the twenty-second century, I had lost people I loved and my heart was broken. I did not go to the ChronoB with the intention of escaping into the past. It was only when I went back to 1769, and spoke with the young lady in my company, that I decided the eighteenth century would be a better era to live. The Empire was at its height of power; morality was decent, and I was then, as I am now, a true British citizen at heart. When I went back, and it seemed to me no one was going to come for me, I settled down to a new life. In fact, I married the young trollop in the brothel; you all know my wife, Christine, and that is her secret past. We had a child. I wanted a better United Kingdom for my family, so I drew up designs I had seen before in libraries, technology I remembered from my college days: designs for airships, battleships, tanks, troop transports, and mechanical armor suits, all operated on the single concept of steam power from coal. It was the best available technology to acquire, albeit too soon.

  ‘Yes, gentlemen,’ V. continued, his head down in shame, ‘it would appear I am a temporal criminal. Millions have perished as a result of one single act by me, and a desire to create a better world. Instead, I fashioned one that was—or will be—worse.’

  ‘It took a lot of energy and effort to finally locate you,’ said the Time Traveler.

  ‘I did not want to be found,’ said V., ‘yet here you are. You have me. What is next?’

  ‘Will you resist arrest?’

  ‘No at all.’

  ‘Arrest?!’ said K., a retired barrister. ‘On what ground, on what authority? I demand to see your constable badge and a writ for such a detainment!’

  ‘It is quite all right, my friend,’ said V., standing up from the table, ‘this gentlemen has the authority to take me…back to whence I came…so I can face judgment.’

  ‘Say here,’ protested W. to the Time Traveler, ‘what will happen to him?’

  ‘History will be shifted back to its proper course,’ responded the Time Traveler.

  K. inquired: ‘How do you know the future history our friend here created by his actions is not, in fact, the more proper history, and the one you know is wrong?’

  The Time Traveler did not offer an answer.

  What happened next, dear sister, neither my colleagues nor I were prepared for. V. walked toward the Time Traveler and the two men stood side by side. The Time Traveler did something with his belt and I saw some odd lights emit from his body and.…

  I am not quite sure how to convey this other than to write: V. and the Time Traveler vanished right before our eyes!

  I swear on the graves of our parents that this is what happened!

  It has indeed crossed my mind—and the minds of the others—that this was all an elaborate hoax concocted by V. for some nefarious amusement. Magicians can do wonders today with smoke and mirrors, and the vanishing act could have been contrived via the magical arts.

  The more I ponder on this, the more I believe it to be so, and soon V. will return to our weekly gatherings and confess to his trickery. To think that the colonies did not persevere and there was never a United States is indeed an absurd notion!

  If you have had a laugh from this letter, it is my sincere desire that it was a good chortle.

  I remain, as always,

  Your Loving Brother,

  Prescott Wells

  III.

  Seventeen-year-old Christine Williams waited in her chambers for the next customer, who would be coming from the “portal” rather than downstairs. She never quite understood what this portal thing was, beyond the doors of the closet, and Mr. Chamberlain, the man who owned the brothel, told her not think about these things too much. One matter was for sure: the customers who came from the portal were better dressed and smelled nicer
and treated her more kindly than the inebriated, rough “gentlemen” of London.

  The customer who emerged from the portal was a tall man with a beard, wearing an odd body-hugging black fabric.

  Christine sat up from the bed, letting her robe fall so the customer could get a good view of her body.

  He wasn’t interested in her body.

  —Some other time, my dear, he said with an accent, a curious accent, and one she could not place. Maybe he was from Australia?

  He seemed familiar, though.

  —Have we been together before, sir? she asked him.

  He seemed nervous, glancing around, as if someone were chasing him.

  —I know you from somewhere, said Christine.

  —What? No, no—yes, yes. We—I know you too.

  She stood up, closing the robe around her nakedness.

  —My skin, it tingles, she said.

  —I have to go.

  —No! Please, I do not understand this.…

  She ran to the customer, this stranger whom she felt like she had known all her life.

  He held her and kissed her on the forehead.

  —A form of déjà-vu, it seems, he said.

  —I do not understand, she said.

  —Goddamn time paradoxes. I’m sorry, Christine, but I must go now.

  —How do you know my name?

  —I will come back for you, I promise. It is, what? 1869, is that the year? What is the month?

  —March, she said.

  —I will come back for you by September, after I complete my—well, there are some things I must attend to. We have a child to enjoy, you and I. And this time I will get it right.